Friday's power outage hurt output at Dundee

Dundee Precious Metals (DPM) Tsumeb says Friday’s nationwide power failure resulted in extensive damage to machinery and will negatively affect its production figures for 2016.
In a company brief issued internationally on Monday, the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) listed company said it expects its 2016 concentrate throughput to be about 20 000 tons less than was originally planned.
The outage occurred at 21:04 on Friday, affecting the central, north-central and western areas of the country, Nampower confirmed at the time.
It said a switch tripped on one of its major transmission lines that feeds power to central Namibia, the Auas/Kokerboom 400kV line.
It lasted for around two hours before power was restored in phases, with the first areas re-energised at 22:52.
DPM-Tsumeb said subsequent to the power failure, cooling water had entered its Ausmelt furnace, resulting in a backup system for power and cooling water not operating as intended.
“(The) outage resulted in damage to refractory lining of Ausmelt furnace, repair of which is expected to take about three weeks,” the company said.
Company management is conducting a full investigation into the incident, and it is believed the refractory lining will have to be replaced.
The majority of that cost is expected to be covered by the company’s insurance.


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